The Wall
by HostilePoet17
Summary: He'd find the right crack in the right wall between their worlds, he promised himself. He'd find her. Ten/Rose.


He returned the next day, sledgehammer in hand, plucked from some errant cupboard lost in the maze of the TARDIS. He hadn't intended to search for it, but oh, his ship had just given him the door, nudged him closer to the notion brewing at the back of his mind. So he had heaved it up and stalked through his ship, noting how dim the lights were today, the absence of the happy hum of her engines. Funny thing, to see a ship grieve.

The wall stared impassively back at him, almost taunting him. _Come and get me_.

Lips twisting into a grimace, he swung the heavy tool back, letting it strike against the expansive white wall, taking grim satisfaction from the _thunk_ that resonated through the room, the vibration of the impact sending pain shooting up his arms. Again, he slammed the hammer against it. And again. Again. He rearranged his footing, feeling pieces of the wall crunching beneath his shoes. He dug his heel into them, disintegrating them to dust. The hammer met the wall again, the echo of its blow no longer registering in his mind. _Just keep going. Keep going. Give her back. Give her back to me_. It hit again, and again. Light suddenly streamed through a crumbling gap in the wall, the tiniest spaces opened up for him. Flinging the sledgehammer aside, he grasped at the edges of the crack, feeling the plaster falling apart beneath the grip of his fingers. He tugged at the jagged bricks, scraping them away, dragging chunks from the wall. Red was streaming down his fingers, but he didn't feel the sting of the dust in his knuckles, didn't register all that blood. Gritting his teeth, he shoved his shoulder against the wall. "LET ME IN!" He yelled, furiously, blisteringly angry. Oh, he felt that rage, that all-consuming, unbearable haze of anger. He didn't see red, though, oh no. No, he saw pink, and yellow, and the white of that fucking wall, and the lovely blue of her jumper. He saw brown eyes pleading silently with him before vanishing. His fist met the wall. "Give her back to me!" He snarled, beating his fists against the damned thing. The hole was sizably bigger now, and he kicked at the loosened bricks, letting them tumble in. Throwing himself against the wall, he felt the entire thing give way, losing his footing and crashing to the floor, debris falling all over and around him. Coughing in the pile of dust, he rose onto his knees, looking out around the room he'd fought so hard to enter. Finally.

There was no one there, the room was bare. The single light source came from the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, left on in the panic of the previous day he assumed. He glanced around, nothing more than a storage room, boxes filled with files, he presumed. Swallowing, he climbed to his feet, vaguely aware of the pains coursing all over his body. "I thought…" He started aloud, before clearing his throat, looking down. Nodding with a grim smile, he shoved his hands into his pockets, giving the room one last look.

No girl stood there waiting, no universe lay hidden behind the wall. The room was grey and ordinary, there were no zeppelins, no pink and yellow humans for him to reclaim. But oh, wasn't it a nice thought, to break through the wall, to pull her back into his arms, to _never ever let go_. He threw back his head and bit out a laugh, a harsh bark into the echoing silence.

"You'd never be that good to me, would you?" He remarked, eyes bright and manic. "The universe would never be so kind to me, oh no. That wouldn't do." He swallowed, feeling his voice wavering. "I'm a murderer, a monster. You don't let the genocidal time traveller get the girl, eh? No, you took her from me." His voice was low now, he could feel that infinite pocket of rage bubbling under the surface of his skin, his fingers shook. "But she was _mine_! She was not yours to take!" He kicked an errant brick across the room, breathing heavily in the silence.

"Thought she'd be here, thought I'd felt her just for a moment," he whispered finally, dragging his hands down his face, feeling the dampness on his cheeks. "That was a bit daft, wasn't it?"

Sniffing, he straightened up and walked back through the gap in the wall, striding into his TARDIS, door clicking shut quietly behind him.

He'd find the right crack in the right wall between their worlds, he promised himself. He'd find her.


End file.
